Tamus communis. Black Bryonia. Ladies’Seal. *N.O. Dioscoreaceae. Tincture of fresh root. Tincture of the berries.
Clinical
Chilblains.
Characteristics
*Tamus is the only European representative of the Dioscoreaceae. There are two species, *T. *communis and *T. *cretica. The Greeks use the young suckers of both like asparagus, which they much resemble. *T. *communis is the Black Bryonia of our hedges. “The root is very great and thick, oftentimes as big as a man’s leg, blackish without and very clammy or slimy within, which having been scraped with a knife, it seems to be a matter fit to be spread upon cloth or leather in manner of a plaster of sear- cloth” (Gerarde). Dioscorides, according to the same authority, says the fruit or berries take away sun-burns and other blemishes of the skin, and Gerarde adds that these “very quickly waste and consume away black and blue marks that come of bruises and dry beatings: which thing also the roots perform being laid upon them.” The fruits steeped in gin are a popular remedy for chilblains, and the only use that *Tamus has been made of by homoeopaths is as a point for chilblains. Gerarde says of the root-plaster that it removes scars and deformities, breaks hard aposteme, draws forth splinters and broken bones, dissolves congealed blood, and if laid on hip or knuckle-bones or any other part where there is great pain, it takes away the pain speedily.
